


If It's Not Food It Shouldn't Smell Like Food

by MJ_Spooks



Category: Leverage
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, I blame tumblr anons, I just love these three so much, M/M, One Shot, this is just dumb cute nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23572222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MJ_Spooks/pseuds/MJ_Spooks
Summary: “It’s a candle,” he told her. “No cookies, or cake or whatever, babygirl.”Parker frowned. “A candle,” she repeated, to which he nodded. “That… smells like cookies?”“Well, technically it’s just vanilla-”“Why would you have a candle that smells like cookies? That’s dumb. Now I want cookies.”
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Comments: 23
Kudos: 171
Collections: oh YES





	If It's Not Food It Shouldn't Smell Like Food

**Author's Note:**

> So I got a tumblr anon asking me what certain characters favorite candle scents would be and it spiraled into this
> 
> Although does it count as spiraling if I managed to keep it under 1000 words?
> 
> Anyway I literally wrote this in like an hour because why tf not
> 
> No beta we swan-dive off a skyscraper like Parker

The first one was an accident.

Alright, maybe not an accident. He hadn’t _accidentally_ bought a candle. The purchasing of said candle had been very much on purpose, because the jar was nice and it smelled nice and Hardison liked nice things. He was allowed to like nice things.

He simply hadn’t been thinking about the potential results of having bought said candle.

He was still trying to determine if he should have been. Or if it was even possible for him to’ve done such a thing.

Really, how was he supposed to know? Parker was unpredictable, it was one of the many things he loved about her. By definition, expecting him to be able to predict her response to a damn vanilla candle was probably unreasonable.

So he would insist, anyway, if pressed on the issue.

He would also insist that all subsequent abuse of her response to the candle, and other similar candles, was entirely accidental, which was a damn lie and they all knew it.

See, it happened like this.

Hardison went to the store. Hardison bought the candle. The candle sat on a small table near the entryway for probably two weeks before he remembered he’d bought it. Eliot made a snarky comment about wasting money buying candles they weren’t lighting. So Hardison lit the damn candle.

Simple. Nothing of note there.

But when Parker got home later that night, the apartment smelled like vanilla. She assumed (and really, it was a fair assumption to make, all things considered) that Eliot had baked something.

“So, where is it?” she had asked, in that very Parker-like tone of hers. Chipper and eager and with a slightly manic look in her eye, and she’d come in through the window, not the front door.

They didn’t have a fire escape on that window.

The boys had shared a look of confusion and slight panic, assuming that she had asked them to acquire something for her and they had forgotten. Or, rather, that was what Hardison assumed. Eliot assumed she had asked Hardison, and Hardison had neglected to either acquire the item, or tell him to do it. Eliot did not forget things like that. Eliot kept _lists_.

Either way, whatever she was asking for, they did not have.

There was a probably too-long silence, during which Hardison racked his brains trying to figure out what she wanted, and Eliot glared at Hardison with the unspoken ‘rack harder’.

When both their efforts proved fruitless, Eliot gave an annoyed huff, crossed his arms, ran a hand over his face, and asked, “Where’s what, darlin’?”

“The cookies.”

Cue another silence, shorter but no less confused.

“Cookies?” they asked in unison. And then glared at each other, because that was weird, even for them.

Parker didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, the cookies,” she said, in a ‘duh’ tone of voice, scurrying towards the kitchen with clear intent. “I smell them. Or is it a pie? Or cake?” She paused and turned on her heel, spearing Eliot with a look that wasn’t quite a glare, but wasn’t quite not one. “You baked something,” she accused. “Where’s mine.”

It was not a question so much as a demand.

Eliot scowled. “You smell- _Dammit, Hardison!_ ”

It took Hardison another couple of seconds to catch on. Then, “Oh!”

He frowned, looking contrite, and stepped towards Parker, hands reaching to catch her arms. “It’s a candle,” he told her. “No cookies, or cake or whatever, babygirl.”

Parker frowned. “A candle,” she repeated, to which he nodded. “That… smells like cookies?”

“Well, technically it’s just vanilla-”

“Why would you have a candle that smells like cookies? That’s dumb. Now I want cookies.”

Eliot snorted.

His humor was short-lived, however, as Parker looked over Hardison’s shoulder to spear him with another look. “Make cookies!” she demanded. “You should make cookies. Or cake. But preferably cookies.”

Already knowing how this was going to end, Eliot decided he’d cave early on and save himself the headache. Or some of it, anyway. So instead of arguing, he sighed, hand running over his face again before he asked, “What kind?”

Parker considered the question for a moment. She knew they had plenty of stuff on hand, because they always did, because Eliot liked to cook and Hardison liked to shop. So the possibilities were endless.

The apartment smelled like vanilla.

“Snickerdoodles,” she declared, mouth settling into an adorable little moue that was far too serious for the conversation at hand. Which was about cookies.

“You got it, darlin’.”

So snickerdoodles were baked and eaten, and Eliot slapped Hardison lightly upside the head, which Hardison thought was patently unfair, because this is Parker we’re talking about. How was he supposed to know?

But the thing is, now he did know.

So _if_ , by some chance, the apartment suddenly acquired a few more candles, and _if_ , by some chance, those candles all happened to smell like apple pies, and blackberry crumble, and strawberry shortcake, well…

Hardison just liked nice things.

**Author's Note:**

> Come check me out at spoopy-miakitty.tumblr.com where I answer a lot of anon messages about Leverage meta


End file.
